Rebound
by Viskey HeroMouse
Summary: In the show Jo and Henry seem to be headed towards something more than friendship. Frankly, I don't see it, but I work with what is handed to me. So here is my interpretation on the two of them having "something".


**Because I'm really not a fan of Henry and Jo ...**

Would have to be labelled AU, because it can't possibly happen after 1x21, and there's not really any time for it to happen between 1x20 and 1x21 ...

English's not my first language, so please be lenient. Thanks and enjoy!

Henry hadn't slept much that night, unsurprisingly. In a way he had seen it coming. At the latest, when she had come to the antiques-shop instead of flying to Paris. And he was alright with that. He just wondered how to explain it to Abraham.

"Pops?!" As if on cue, Abe was calling out for him.

Henry quickly entangled himself from the sleeping Jo, lying in his bed, hoping he wouldn't wake her in the process. She stirred, but settled back into the pillow with a contented sigh.

Good. Henry slipped out of the bed, threw on his dressing gown and stepped outside. "Abe?" he called out softly.

Abe half-stepped out of the kitchen. "What?" he asked with the loving reproach he did so well.

"Mind sticking to calling me Henry this morning?" Henry asked, his voice soft but urgent.

"Sure. - Wait, what? Why?" He suddenly stretched and bent, trying to see around Henry and catch a glimpse of his bedroom door. As if he could somehow look through the wood and inside the room. And then the penny dropped. Abe's face lit up. "You got company!" he exclaimed triumphantly. "Good for you, Da- Henry, good for you!"

Henry cleared his throat, uneasily.

"What? She ugly?" Abe asked nonchalantly, before disappearing back into the kitchen. "Better set up another cup and plate, then."

Henry quickly shot a look back over his shoulder. Bedroom door still firmly shut, no sounds audible behind it. He quickly jogged after Abe. "Listen", he said softly, "when she comes out of my room... please, don't draw all the wrong conclusions."

Abe looked at him sideways, while rearranging the breakfast table to make room for a third set. "Like what? Like that you had fun tonight?"

Henry hated it when Abe talked to him like that, so loosely, as if he weren't talking to his father. He only let it pass because it helped concealing their relationship to the world. "No, not that."

This time, thankfully, Abe refrained from a lewd comment, just gave Henry a look.

"It's just that..."

A hem was heard from the doorway.

Oh... damn.

Abe straightened up with surprise and also pleasure. "Jo! What a... surprise." He gave her one of his best, brightest smiles.

"Uh..." She had the good grace to blush.

Abe turned his bright smile to Henry, and Henry could practically hear his thoughts: _Way to go, Dad!_

Henry hung his head and sighed.

"What," Abe said and softly nudged Henry in the ribs, before looking at him and Jo with questioning eyes. "Hey, if you two feel so embarrassed by what you did last night, maybe you shouldn't have done it."

"Maybe," Jo agreed despondently.

Henry cleared his throat, because... well, for his part, he was not ashamed of what he had done. He just wished he could explain to Abe... Hang on, why couldn't he? "Jo?" He turned around to her. "Do you mind giving us a moment?"

That really unsettled her, not that she could be blamed, but she did her best to hide it.

Henry quickly went over to her, took her by the shoulders and looked at her reassuringly. "Don't worry, I don't regret what happened last night, nor should you. Everything will be fine and we'll be having some wonderful breakfast in just a few minutes. But I need to set a few ground rules for Abraham before..." He left the rest hangingin the air.

After a moment's hesitation she nodded.

"Ground rules?" Abe asked, as soon as Jo was out of earshot. "What am I, five?"

"You might as well be, the way you..." Henry waved it off. "No. Sorry, this is not about... well, it kind of... I just mean to say..."

"Deep breath, Henry."

Henry heeded the advice, and then said, in relative calm: "What I'm trying to tell you is this: This is not the big romance you maybe see it as."

Abe just looked at him expectantly.

"I mean, I know, you want me to move on, and by all means, you are right, I should. Abigail has been gone for thirty years now. The chances that she's even still alive are... well." He swallowed the emotions he still felt in regards to Abigail, the good and the bad. They had no place in this moment.

"Then what...?" Abe pointed at the door, behind which, somewhere, Jo was waiting. "You know she deserves better than a casual fling."

Henry nodded. Granted, he and Abe haven't had a normal father-son-relationship in decades, but still, this was awkward. "I know", he croaked.

"Which is why I repeat myself: Then what?" Abe said, now honestly upset on Jo's behalf.

"I'm her rebound."

There was a long moment of silence.

"I told Jo that she should... go back out there, meet people... men. That she should go get her life back," Henry admitted.

"So basically all the things that you still haven't managed to even start doing after thirty years," Abe pointed out with the precision of a scalpel.

"You know..."

"... things are different for you, yes. Just... Thirty years, Dad," Abe said sympathetically. "Even for you that should be enough to..."

"Presumably. But..." He turned, looking over his shoulder for Jo. "It's not going to be her. She is a good friend, a very good friend."

"With benefits, apparently," Abe cut in.

"For the time being," Henry conceded. "But we are much better as friends than as lovers. And one day she will realise that too, and then we will go back to being friends without benefits. But until then..."

Abe nodded. "Alright, I get it. Now bring her back in, coffee's getting cold."

Henry smiled with relief and quickly left to get Jo, who probably was dying from nervousness by now. If she was even still here. She was, just finishing getting dressed. "Everything is fine now," he told her.

"Ground rules, huh?" she asked, shrugging into her blazer.

Henry couldn't believe that he was going to have this conversation again with her, albeit with a shifted focus. "Abraham, he's been trying to set me up with a woman for a while now," he explained. "I just don't want him to hear any wedding bells ringing just yet. I don't know if you've noticed, but patience is not his strongest suit."

Jo smiled. "He can be a little rash, I guess."

"Right." Henry smiled too. He had tons of memories of rash Abe.

"So... What you told him was... what exactly?"

Damn, he should have known that Jo wouldn't just let it go. "I told him, that he please leave us be, not force anything on us, not put pressure on us. Just let things unfold the way they unfold... in their own time."

Jo pressed her lips together as she nodded. "Good ground rule," she gauged.

Henry allowed himself a silent breath of relief. Crisis averted, it seemed. "You go ahead and join Abraham, he's already complained to me about the coffee getting cold."

She laughed, but turned around in the doorway when he didn't follow. "What about you?"

"I'll just put on something more appropriate." He looked down at himself. He was still naked under the dressing gown.

"Alright." She gave hiim a peck on the corner of his mouth. "I guess I can handle Abe's impatience with us for a minute or two. Just don't be too long."

Henry nodded and watched her as she walked out of his room, across the hall. He wondered how long it would take her to bounce back to normal from this rebound.

And he wondered how long it would take him.


End file.
